Peckham Rye Music Festival 2016

Peckham Rye Music Festival 2016
At around 4 AM on Sunday, there was a brief lull in Juan Atkins' pummelling headline set. The coiled rhythm in the track he was playing dropped off, leaving only a thick fog of ambience. Looking around, it was as if half the crowd had left the room. But it was an illusion. Most of the audience had simply crushed forward in a desperate attempt to be closer to the music. Half the dance floor lay empty behind, while a tightly-packed group of revellers crowded the stage. Myself and other punters looked at each other blearily as if to say, "How did we get here?"

Peckham Rye Music Festival is the latest in a seemingly endless series of new festivals in London. Unlike most, it's located south of the river, spread across an area where hipster gentrification meets the local working class community. It's normal to see discount pram shops next to independent gluten-free bakeries. Despite the identity crisis, the area around Peckham Rye is home to plenty of cool bars and clubs, and it felt like a natural fit for an inner-city festival.

Organising a three-day event across multiple spaces can't be easy but the team were up to the task. The venues were distinctive and close together, which helped brew a friendly, communal atmosphere—I saw many of the same people, in various stages of deterioration, at different places throughout the day. Strangers socialised with an ease that's rare in London. Not everything was perfect, though. The sound quality varied wildly, from the ultra-crisp setup in the Copeland Gallery and Bussey Building's main rooms, to the underfed subs at Canavan's, or the muddy speakers at The Nines. But even occasional poor sound couldn't spoil the mood.

An electronic festival lives and dies by the quality of its bookings. There was a fair amount of talent on offer, but to schedule most of the best acts across four hours on a Saturday night proved a serious oversight. The Friday opening was fun, with Gateway To Zen and Chaos In The CBD spinning a party-ready selection of house and techno, even if it felt more like a standard club night than the launch of a festival.

Arriving early on Saturday, I was met by a smiling crowd drinking beers in the sun outside Peckham Springs. Inside, DJ Qu and October were playing an inspired selection of raw house. The two complimented each other perfectly, Qu's brittle soul contrasting with October's punkier textures. Lawrence played live at the Copeland Gallery at 6 PM, conjuring silky deep house for a hypnotised crowd. And then there was a bit of a dip, with the next act I wanted to see not on until much later in the night. I hopped between venues and bars in the meantime, catching bouncy house from Seb Wildblood and prom-worthy selection of lovers rock from NTS's Charlie Bones in Canavan's. Tenderlonious & Al Dobson Jr played an inconsistent set at The Nines, where baffling tracks followed brilliant ones.

Bass Clef was the night's first true success story. He played a frenzied live set that veered from Latin rhythms to tunnelling techno, stopping every so often to pull out haunting solos on his trombone. Granted, the groove was frequently interrupted by periods of wacky synth noodling, but there was always a fat rhythm waiting around the corner. Afterwards, though, the energy sagged. MM/KM (AKA Mix Mup & Kassem Mosse) rolled out painfully minimal techno to an almost empty room (to be fair to them, their slot was changed with no announcement). Downstairs, Benji B DJ'ed polite instrumental grime to a stuffed but unmoving dance floor.

It felt like I was in the wrong place, so I moved on. Over at Canavan's, the mood had picked up. Leif played a set of beautiful deep house, before Lakuti followed with a fiery mix of disco and raw-edged Chicago house. Her set was the night's high point, sometimes dark but always funky. And then suddenly it was 4 AM. There I was, standing sweat-drenched in front of Juan Atkins while he expertly manipulated the crowd with his brand of surgical funk.